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Seth Baum

American researcher

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 16, 2025
Entity authorityQ27663175 ↗
Source-derived summary

Seth Baum is an American researcher involved in the field of risk research. He is the executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI), a think tank focused on existential risk. He is also affiliated with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and the Columbia University Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.

Academic career

Baum obtained his BS in optics and mathematics in 2003 at the University of Rochester, followed by an MS in Electrical Engineering, Northeastern University in 2006.

In 2012, he obtained his PhD in Geography with his dissertation on climate change policy: "Discounting Across Space and Time in Climate Change Assessment" from Pennsylvania State University. Later, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Columbia University Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. Baum then steered his research interests into astrophysics and global risks, including global warming and nuclear war, and the development of effective solutions for reducing them.

Furthermore, he is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis.

Work

As a graduate student in Northstrom, Boston, Baum contributed to the Whats Up magazine (now Spare Change News), from 2004 to 2007.

In 2011, Baum co-founded GCRI along with Tony Barrett, with the mission to "develop the best ways to confront humanity's gravest threats".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Seth Baum” is american researcher. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Seth, Baum and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2003, 2006, 2012, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1980-10-17. For this dossier, Seth, Baum and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american researcher” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q27663175. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2006, 2012 and 2004.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Seth Baum”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Seth Baum primary sources, Seth Baum archive and Seth research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Seth Baum”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Seth Baum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.